


Running on MT

by Taoroo_Writes (taoroo)



Series: Glass Half MT [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: BAMF Prompto Argentum, Blood and Injury, FFXV AU, Gore, Happy Ending, Hurt Prompto Argentum, MT Prompto Argentum, No seriously it has a happy ending I promise, Prompto can have little a death as a treat, Suffering, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23685085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taoroo/pseuds/Taoroo_Writes
Summary: Prompto didn't get rescued as a baby and instead is trained up to be a model Imperial Magitek Tooper.Well, that was the plan anyway. The Astrals have other ideas.In which Prompto saves the day while still managing to remain his usual goofy, walking-disaster self, only with added pain and misery :D
Series: Glass Half MT [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856518
Comments: 60
Kudos: 394





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Um, please heed the warnings here. The injuries get quite graphic.....

Prompto opens his eyes and looks around, feeling a smile tugging at his cheeks as he takes in the view.

It’s a soft summer day. The setting: a park. A gentle breeze nudges the tree branches, the whispering leaves a background to the birdsong chorus.

His feet are bare, standing on the grass, the blades poking up between his toes.

He wonders if the real thing feels this soft.

“Insomnia today?” he asks, not bothering to look for his companion. She will appear when she chooses to, usually at an unexpected moment, to dramatic or comedic effect. She always seems to be listening, however, whether visible or not. He supposes that is her right, given this place only exists thanks to her.

“…What’s the occasion? It’s only been sixty-eight days since my birthday,” he continues with a chuckle, tilting his face up to the sun and imagining its warmth.

_It is time._

Prompto opens his eyes and sees two children on the grass ahead: a girl and a boy. A white dog is playing amongst them, leaping to catch the flattened red disc they throw. The girl has long, blonde hair like the sun, and the boy’s spiked hair is black like the midnight sky. Prompto knows them – has spoken to them, played with them, many times. But today their voices are muffled, like listening to orders given under water.

The dog stops her play and stares right at him, her mouth open to pant, mimicking a smile.

_He is in danger. You must leave soon._

Prompto’s stomach clenches, but he tries to put on a brave face.

“Leave. Yes. Right, that’s totally… Yeah, okay.”

Pryna’s blue eyes fix on Prompto in that way that always seems to make him feel invincible.

_You can do this. You must have faith._

“Y-yeah,” Prompto tries to sound certain, even though uncertainty is creeping in on him like a full dose of demon blood.

 _We do not waste time on the unworthy._ Pryna’s voice manages to be gentle and stern all at once. _You are exceptional, Prompto Argentum. Think of all you have already achieved. Was that not also once impossible?_

Prompto blows out a deep breath and takes another, steadying nerve and resolve.

“Okay… okay,” he straightens, fixing his first and dearest friend with a look of resolve.

“Tell me what I’ve gotta do.”


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up after a visit from Pryna is always a jarring experience. Prompto stares through the grime of the viewing portal for a while, reacclimatising to his true surroundings. Gone is the fresh, vibrant scene of his dreams, replaced by metal and rust. The sun doesn’t reach inside the facility and the pod is cool, unyielding. The only light is the harsh blue fluorescence of the walkway striplight, which casts stark shadows and lends to the constant sense of migrainous nausea that gnaws behind his eyes.

The pods aren’t locked, any more than one would lock a fridge or a dresser. No-one here is expecting the hardware to walk away of its own accord.

It’s just under a half-hour before the day shift is due to start and Prompto is alone as he marches through the facility. There’s no point in trying to sneak to his destination; that would only arouse suspicion. An MT walking around on its own, carrying out commands, wasn’t unusual after all.

He unlocks the armoury with his barcode, half expecting his permissions to be denied or an alarm to sound, as absurd as that would be. MT units required frequent access to equipment; that they would misuse it was unthinkable. MTs do not have the capacity for independent thought, not even L2's. Prompto is unique. Pryna says so.

He hesitates just a little when he sees the suit. Man, does he hate those things so freaking much.

Still, there’s no time to delay. He swallows down his revulsion and climbs on in. He grimaces when the connections align but years of conditioning allows him to prevent making any vocal expressions of pain.

**UNIT ONLINE**

Prompto takes a breath.

Well, damn. Here goes nothing.

The airship hangar is just starting to fill when he marches through the doorway. 

He can feel the sweat building, trickling down his spine and tingling with static where it hits his connection point. He knows no-one will pay any attention, but it feels like the whole room has their eyes turned on him anyway.

**[WARNING] HEART RATE ACCELERATION DETECTED**

**[QUERY] ENGAGE COMBAT MODE**

“N-negative,” Prompto whispers. He knows the suit and his own voice are muffled to outside ears, but it would be a dead giveaway if anyone heard. L3 units are fully integrated with their suits and don’t need voice commands, and only L3 units are cleared to go on field operations.

There's an assault craft waiting by the exit, but it isn’t until Prompto is half-way there that he realises its doors are shut.

It’s too late to turn back, and indecisive action will only increase suspicion.

Prompto reaches the ship and stops. He stands beside the door as if on guard, at perfect attention, his rifle in hand.

He wants to fidget so bad. Guard duty is his least favourite of tasks; all those monotonous hours for silence and rigid attention are hell at the best of times, let-alone when facing the prospect of instant disassembly should he be discovered.

It takes less than seven minutes before an MT detachment enters the hangar, thank literally all the Astrals.

As always, Prompto suppresses his shudder as the mindless drones approach, and he doesn’t flinch when the dropship doors slide open with a harsh hiss beside him.

He waits until the detachment has climbed in, then steps up after them, just before the doors slide shut.

His life – Prompto contemplates, feeling a little giddy from the adrenaline that courses through him – is just one long series of transitions from one metal cage to another.

Time for that to change.

The units don’t pay him any attention. Like the rest of the facility they are programmed to follow orders and have no reason to suspect Prompto is doing otherwise. It is not unusual for separate detachments to share the same transport vehicle. There is a mix of units, some of them magitek like him; axemen, a few assassins, and a bannerman – while the majority are riflemen or snipers; cyborgs with barely a scrap of humanity left inside them that they might as well be under the same classification as L3's. Still, what humanity _is_ left inside them can make them dangerous; they have the capacity to be suspicious. To learn. Adapt.

The dropship rumbles and jerks into the air, and Prompto has barely enough time to command the suit to brace. Smashing his face into the floor of the ship would be a dead giveaway that he doesn’t belong here.

**GRIEVE SUPPORT AT 150%**

Prompto grits his teeth, feeling the strain the suit places on his legs at every twist and turn of the ship.

One cyborg unit turns its head slightly to observe Prompto at the sound of his suit, but no alarm sounds and after a moment it resumes its vacant stare at the door beyond him.

Once the ship stabilises, Prompto also turns around, face an inch from the dropship door. His helm isn’t connected to the mission log, so he has no idea how long the transfer will take or where they are going, but from ordinance training he knows it will be several hours at least. Pryna assures him the craft is bound for Lucis, and he trusts her completely.

To while away the time Prompto marvels at the simplicity of his escape.

That was it? It was that easy?

Why hadn’t he done this years ago?

That was an easy answer: Years ago, Niflheim weren’t dropping MT units in areas strategically and statistically viable for a successful escape. Sure, he could have run like this before, but where _to_? Nowhere that wasn’t a war zone or inside heavily occupied territory. Nowhere safe.

Not that Lucis is _safe,_ per-se – certainly not now – but it's better than nothing.

Besides, it has only been in the last few years that he has truly been _ready_ to leave.

Pryna has been a kind and exacting teacher, but Prompto has taken years to get to the point where even the _idea_ of going against his programming was possible.

And now. Now he is doing the exact opposite of what he has been manufactured to do. He is going to lend direct aid to the enemies of his creator.

Words like desertion and treason don’t apply. He is a machine. He is deliberately, knowingly, _willingly_ breaking his programming. Corrupting his code. It shouldn’t be possible. It _wasn’t_ possible. Not for a normal MT. But Pryna believes in him. Pryna says he is special. And with Pryna’s help he’s done the impossible, again, and again. And he's going to keep on doing just that. Because he can. Because Pryna believes in him. Because she’s shown him grass, and trees, and laughter, and the _sun_ ; and perhaps today he might see all of that, _feel_ all of that, for real. Not just an oversimplified, brightly out of focus dream world, but like, _really_ real.

His thoughts abruptly come to an end as the door shudders open. A blast of cold wind rocks him ever so slightly, and then he sees it.

He sees _everything_.

It's even better than his dreams. The land just keeps on going: a vast expanse of greens, and yellows, and browns; and above – oh _above_ – is blue. Not bright, impossible blue like the world of Pryna’s dreams, but a light, whimsical blue, lighter than his eyes (and without that damn red tinge that spreads a little further with every passing day).

His breath catches in his throat – a familiar sensation of overwhelming feeling that was a staple back when all of Pryna’s world was new. Happy tears, she had called them; the first person ever not to punish him for showing such human emotion.

This time, though, it's Prompto himself who can’t allow his emotions to get the better of him. The ground is coming up fast and, less than two hundred feet away, stands their objective.

Three figures, shouting to one-another over the drone of the ship. The wreckage of a previous unit is scattered around them. There are three flashes of blue as weapons materialise in their hands, just as the ship come to a halt in the sky above.

“Maximum impact absorption,” Prompto says, barely waiting for the suit’s response before he jumps down to earth.

It's both harder and softer than he imagined it would be. The suit takes the impact of the landing, which would otherwise have shattered both ankles, and yet he feels the give of the soil – a sponginess above the more solid base of rock beneath.

They're on a ridge of land that juts out from the head of a forest, from which the prince and his retainers must have come. The dropship is parallel to that forest and their target, on the curve of the ridge, and closer to the tree line than their target is, but not yet cutting them off. To their left the ridge falls away; Prompto’s suit’s mapping system informing him of an average eighty-three-foot drop to the stones below. A high wall rises opposite their unit, their target caught against it. The only way out is back into the forest.

If he runs, the prince might make it to the tree line before the Imperials, giving his side the advantage of cover. They can split the unit then, pick them off individually, or simply retreat to safety.

Prompto makes for the trees, hearing some of those behind him doing likewise. The suit’s tactical overlay shows them as points on a grid; white allied markers fanning out to pincer their red-dotted target against the wall.

Instead of heading toward the trees, the prince gives an angry shout and throws his weapon – a sword – at the nearest unit, before exploding into a shower of blue sparks. His red enemy marker disappears and then reappears on top of the white one, at the same time as the prince materialises on its shoulders, his sword buried in its chest.

His retainers both give a warning shout, and then they too engage in a manner which seems tactically unsound. Prompto can hear the shield swearing colourfully, the frustration in his tone suggesting this was not a planned assault.

‘ _Impulsivity_ ’. Prompto recalls from the dossier. ‘ _Combat inexperience_ ’. ‘ _Emotional instability_ ’.

The hand calls out an instruction, and the prince responds with a snapped negative. He warps again and cuts another unit down, and Prompto has to remind himself that its death-cries are programmed in to unsettle opponents and target morale. There’s barely anything left inside the suit at this stage, save miasma, let alone anything that could feel pain.

Prompto makes a rapid assessment. The three humans are bloodied, their clothes ripped in several places. Some patches of blood do not have corresponding wounds, suggesting potions have been used, though others are still present, suggesting those potions have since run out. The suit calculates their movements at 76% optimum efficiency. They are fatigued.

The hand stumbles away from a spray of bullets.

**[RECALCULATION] 72% EFFICIENCY**

A rifleman raises its weapon and aims. Prompto can see that the prince – occupied with fending off an axeman – hasn’t seen it. 

He raises his own rifle and fires before he can overthink it.

The rifleman’s weapon flies out of its destroyed hand, and suddenly there’s more attention on Prompto than he has ever wanted.

The prince doesn’t notice his brush with death, ducking under the axe swing to stab right through the unit's abdomen. The weapon sticks and he curses, barely dodging the next swing and then warping away with a flung knife. He staggers as he rematerialises, turning his fall into a roll and chopping off another unit’s arm as he closes the gap. His movements are graceful despite his fatigue, fluid like a bird in flight.

Promto is so mesmerised he almost doesn’t notice the MT behind him before it’s too late. He hears the whoosh of air, however, as the axeman swings, and drops to a knee, whirling about even as the axe sails overhead. He fires a bullet up and between the space between helmet and chest.

The MT falls backward, miasma leaving from the hole before its even hit the ground.

Prompto leaps up and scans the battleground, seeing that the prince is coming to his hand’s aid where the man is fending off two units with his spear. Prompto sees one aiming point-blank with no room for the hand to dodge, and so aims his own rifle and takes out its knee.

The unit drops, giving the hand clear access to its head, which he skewers expertly, using it as leverage to jump and flip bodily over to flank the second, which has switched its attention to the prince.

The hand shoots a look across the field, sharp eyes meeting Prompto’s for a moment with a calculating look that unnerves him. Then the man is back to the more immediate danger, pulling out a pair of daggers before launching himself into the fray.

The shield has gone after the snipers, who stand close to the drop ship, away from the forest. His massive sword cleaves one in half, its core igniting on impact. This barely phases the man – ‘ _strength_ ’, ‘ _resilience_ ’, ‘ _inflexible_ ’ – and he’s cut another down before its even had time to raise its weapon.

Another axeman engages and for a while they trade blows. It’s obvious the shield’s stamina is wearing out without Prompto’s suit having to provide the numbers, but he keeps on hacking without rest. Then a tricky parry catches him on the back foot and suddenly the tide has turned in the axeman’s favour.

Prompto starts running. From here he can’t get a good shot of the unit; the shield is in the way and they’re moving too fast to be certain he won’t hit the man. He needs to get a better angle or, failing that, engage physically.

He’s not running fast enough, despite his excellence in this area.

“Engage grieve assist: full power,” he pants.

**[WARNING] ENGAGING THIS FEATURE WILL CAUSE UNIT DEGRADATION**

“Override,” Prompto grits out and stifles the scream as the suit pushes his legs past physical capabilities. His ligaments tear, his hips grinding, bone creaking under the pressure as his muscles are ripped from them. He won’t be able to support himself without the suit acting as his exoskeleton now, but it won’t matter if he can’t complete his mission. As long as his brainstem remains intact his body’s just a hunk of meat being carried along for the ride.

The shield deflects the axeman’s blade to the side, but the unit follows the axe’s momentum to swing it up into an overarm cleave that the man hasn’t the time or strength to parry

Prompto raises his rifle, one-handed, and fires off a round.

The bullet passes over the shield’s head, between his arms which are thrusting his sword upward in a desperate block, and explodes through the axeman’s fingers.

The shield shouts in alarm and triumph, readjusting his grip to thrust his sword through the axeman’s chest. He thinks he’s won.

Prompto is twenty feet away. He swears, and instructs his suit to run faster.

**[ERROR] MAXIMUM SPEED HAS BEEN REACHED**

He can see the prince in his periphery, trying and failing to warp, blue light stuttering. There’s a gun in his hand, aimed at Prompto.

Instead of collapsing into a pile of misama and armour, the axeman raises the remnants of its shattered hands and grips the shield’s hands where they still hold his sword hilt. It yanks hard, pulling the sword deeper into its body, and the shield stumbles closer. Close enough for the axeman to smash its head down into the man’s face.

Blood spurts, the shield’s nose broken. His body goes limp, unconscious if not dead, and can do nothing to stop the axeman as it swings its upper body round 180 degrees to fling him away and over the ridge.

Prompto races by the unit seconds later, ignoring it in favour of the body that has just disappeared over the lip of the ridge. The armour is already leaking miasma, it can’t cause any more harm than it already has.

He hears the prince cry out; a torn, broken sound drenched in horror and grief. But it’s a passing thing; there are more important matters that claim his attention.

He turns his leap into a dive, catching up with the shield’s falling body fast, his armour spattered with the man’s blood, which trails behind him like the tail of a kite. He catches the shield by the wrist, then twists himself in the air, only just engaging full arm assist before his fingers slam into the rock of the wall and halt their fall. The shock rips his right arm from the socket and he blacks out for what his suit informs him later is three seconds, before agony drags him back awake.

Prompto can feel blood running down the inside of his vambrace on his left hand, the one holding them to the rock. His suit's status panel shows that three of the fingers are broken and one bone has torn through his skin. The assist locks them in place but that does nothing to help him out of this situation.

Prompto turns his head slowly, blinking rapidly to try and correct his vision, which is pain-blurred and filled with flashing lights.

The shield is a dead weight, but the suit’s sensors indicate that he’s still alive, if rapidly losing blood from his nose and several other minor-to-moderate wounds which litter his body.

Vaguely, Prompto revisits an old question as to why the man doesn’t wear more armour, considering the poor resistance flesh has to most Imperial weapons. But that’s a puzzle for another time, he chides himself, as a shower of dust and rock fragments signals the arrival of the prince on the ridge edge. Prompto can hear him shouting the shield’s name and then the hand’s, interspersed with an impressive amount of cursing and entreaties to the Astrals. Prompto turns his head once more to face him. He looks exhausted, and it’s clear from his futile gestures that he hasn’t the stamina to warp to his retainer’s aid. His expression is pained, but also shocked, staring at Prompto in fear and confusion.

Prompto remembers a boy in a garden, laughing as he plays with a girl and her dog. He remembers the hours that they talk together, the boy answering any question that comes to Prompto’s mind with enthusiasm. There are so many questions.

He remembers the jokes and the laughter. The games, and the comfort. The tears.

He’s never seen Noct so sad.

Prompto wets his lips, but even so his voice is a thin croak.

“Engage full assist mode.”

He constructs an action sequence, plots the trajectory of the move, and the power required to pull it off, then braces himself.

**[ERROR] SUIT POWER LOW**

**[ERROR] INSUFFICIENT POWER TO PERFORM SPECIFIED ACTIONS**

Prompto takes a shuddering breath. He looks up, meeting eyes again with the boy in the dream. His heart clenches painfully.

“Divert all power to specified action sequence.”

**[ERROR] INSUFFICIENT POWER TO PERFORM SPECIFIED ACTIONS**

“Dammit,” he groans, “…Divert all essential systems power to action sequence.”

**[WARNING] COMMAND WILL END ALL ESSENTIAL SYSTEM SUPPORT FUNCTIONS**

Prompto huffs a quiet, weary laugh.

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.”

**[QUERY] CLARIFICATION REQUIRED**

Prompto sighs, trying and failing to draw a steady breath. Everything hurts, his entire body pulsing in agony. Even forming words is almost too much to manage.

“Override unit protective protocols. On command, divert all essential systems power and run specified action sequence.”

The suit beeps in recognition and given no more warnings. Metal and wires don’t care if the flesh bonded to it is living or dead. With enough daemon blood it will function just the same.

A cloud, which has before now been covering the sun, drifts lazily by. The prince is plunged into dark contrast, his face nearly obscured by the brightness of the sun’s light which shines behind him.

Prompto smiles and closes his eyes, tilting his face toward the heat. Even behind the helmet he can feel it, warming him, just like he’d dreamt it would.

“Engage.”


	3. Chapter 3

The MT was talking, Noctis was sure of it, but he was too far away to hear. He gripped the side of the ledge helplessly, staring down at Gladio where he was hanging, unconscious, from the rogue MT’s grip like a corpse.

The rest of the Imperials were down, the one that had thrown his friend collapsing into a heap of metal seconds after. All that remained was the one currently holding Gladio’s life literally in its hands.

He tried again to warp but his body stuttered uselessly, stasis dragging at him with barbed, frozen hooks. He shouted to Gladio, _ordering_ him to wake up, but the dumb jock just hung there, oblivious to his own insubordination.

The MT looked up and straight into Noctis’s eyes, its own glowing a sinister red, like two coals from the pits of hades. It gave no emotion like all the rest of them – as if a machine _could_ – but something in the concentrated way it was looking at him unnerved Noctis.

The sun came out from behind a cloud, reflecting off the MT’s armour until Noctis was nearly blinded. In turn, the MT tilted its head upward. The helmet was the same expressionless mask as all the others, but for a moment Noctis could have sworn it was smiling.

“Engage,” it said, the word clearer than all the others, no mistaking it for anything else.

Noctis braced himself for some kind of attack, but instead, the red lights of the MT’s eyes blacked out. A moment later and the unit moved, its actions stilted and robotic – well, more so than it had displayed in the last few minutes at least. It reminded Noctis of the jerking motion of a capture crane, each part moving in a sequence but without the spark of a central controlling being.

First the MT raised a foot to the side of the cliff-face, planting it firmly and bracing on it as it next twisted outward. The arm holding Gladio jerked away from the cliff side, paused, then came forward again at speed, heaving Gladio in an upward arc that surpassed any show of strength Noctis had ever witnessed in such a unit. This action was accompanied by a scream; hoarse with agony and muted behind the armour, cut off moments after it began. He’d heard that sound many times before; the death cry of a wounded monster.

Noctis didn’t have time to dwell on it, however; what with Gladio’s still-unconscious – _gratuitously large –_ body flying at speed toward him.

Yelling in surprise, Noctis leapt up just in time to catch his shield as he crashed bodily into him. He fell back, just barely able to cushion their descent to earth. The landing crushed the air from his lungs and sent jagged waves of agony up his back.

For a while all he could do was lay there, wheezing and stunned.

“Highness!” Ignis rushed to his side, panting from his own sprint across the battlefield. “Are you injured?”

“Just get this big lummox off of me,” Noctis gasped.

Together they managed to half-drag, half-roll their comatose teammate to the side, enough for Noctis to make an undignified shimmy out from under him. After the prince had got his breath back, they tugged Gladio into what could charitably be called a recovery position.

“He alive?” Noctis asked, massaging his chest and groaning as his back loudly protested.

“Miraculously, yes,” Ignis said, his light tone masking the concern they both felt. He took out a tissue and used one of Gladio’s own hands to keep it in position under his nose, soaking up the blood that still trickled at a steady pace from it.

“That blow was enough to cave in a man’s skull.”

“Good job he’s got such a thick head,” Noctis snorted.

“We should be careful of a concussion,” Ignis said, getting to his feet. “I shall fetch a potion from the car just to be on the safe side, before we try to move him.”

Noctis eyed the behemoth-in-human-form and imagined trying to carry him to the Regalia.

“Good idea.”

Ignis glanced toward the ridge. “I take it Gladio’s miraculous rescue was somehow orchestrated by the rogue Magitek unit which followed him over the edge?” 

Noctis nodded mutely. He heaved himself to his feet, stubbornly ignoring the stasis that called to him, and shuffled wincingly to the edge.

Ignis joined him and they both looked down at what remained of the MT.

“It must have lost its grip after it threw Gladio back up,” Noctis said, feeling a pang of sympathy for the poor, broken thing that now lay smashed against the ground at the foot of the ridge.

Which was dumb; machines didn’t have feelings.

“I wonder what possessed it to do such a thing,” Ignis mused.

Noctis shrugged. “Malfunction probably,” he said, though he didn’t feel convinced by his answer, “Maybe it misidentified us as allies.”

“Well, there’s no sense in wondering now,” Ignis said, ignoring the fact that he had been the one to ask the question. He turned away, heading for the tree line.

“We must focus on the living.”

Noctis stayed staring down at the broken bits of armour for a while longer.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, his brow creased in doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kind messages folx! Most of this is written now, just need to edit, so expect frequent updates :D
> 
> Warning: the next chapter is a bit bloody... T x


	4. Chapter 4

For a moment when he wakes, Prompto thinks he’s back in his pod. Though his eyes are open, blackness fills his vision, silence almost absolute. Everything smells of metal, though much sharper than usual; more visceral and damp.

Then the pain arrives.

He gasps, choking on blood and wheezing a trickle of air into his lungs. The pain burns through him, white-hot and pulsing thickly with his stuttered heartbeat. Screaming is impossible, the agony all-consuming; so he simply sucks in breath after hideous breath of blood-soaked air, focusing on reaching and maintaining a steady rhythm.

He tries to collate his injuries without having to move. His dislocated shoulder is still very much so, fingers numb as the nerve damage sets in; while the fingers on his left hand scream and throb, shattered bones grinding together at the slightest movement. Several, if not all of his ribs are broken, and by the feel of it one at least has punctured his thoracic cavity. Since he isn’t drowning in blood he guesses the lung has at least partially collapsed, sealing the wound over with his own organ acting as the plug – hence the feeling of being sat on by a particularly heavy anak.

At least he can’t feel his legs any more. Or anything below his waist for that matter. Thank the Astrals for silver linings.

He huffs a broken wheeze of a laugh despite the pain it causes.

 _Quicksilver_ linings.

The suit itself is hella dead, not even enough power left to light up the inner console. If he had been a little more progressed toward L3, Prompto’s life-force itself would have powered the module beyond its own backup powercell. Instead he’s trapped inside a metal shell, too broken and exhausted to force his way free.

Not that it would do him any good. He has no idea how long has passed since his fall, no idea if the sun waits to burn him to ash should he leave the protection of his armour. He knows the amount of Starscourge within him is at reactive levels; his latest transfusion was less than four days ago.

“Initiate,” he croaks, just in case, retching on the blood that is forced up his throat by the action. The suit keeps him locked in place where he’s landed, he can’t even turn aside to vomit; so he rides the wave and swallows down what he can before it drowns him. With effort, he clears his throat and spit-dribbles the remaining clots free. They collect in a gooey puddle on his cheek.

He waits, grimacing as the phlegm slowly oozes its way past his ear and down the back of his neck, into his hair.

The suit stays dead.

Man, this sucks.

Prompto considers his options, few as they are. Either he can lay here, in the dark and the clawing silence, and wait to die of blood loss and shock; or he can hurry it the hell up and get it over with already.

The second option is not a fun prospect. Still, he gathers his courage and presses his teeth hard together, and does what has to be done.

His left hand takes an age to respond, his reflexes as sluggish as his perception of time. When it does, Prompto can’t help the scream that is torn from his snarling lips.

Pain he’s used to: the daily agonies of training and physical correction; of vivisection and enhancement; the sudden bursts of a broken bone, and the prolonged burning torture or electrostatic conditioning; even the daemon blood transfusions are like acid being slowly poured into his veins, leaving him nauseous and horribly itchy. In all of that, though, Prompto’s mostly always a passive participant, no more able to prevent his own harm than to feel the grass beneath his feet, or the sun on his face. This time, _he_ is the instigator, it’s _his_ mind controlling the pain that shoots through him, as tearing and draining as a session under Besithia’s knife.

He doesn’t have to do this.

He can stop the pain right now.

Just lay back and wait to die.

He’s completed the mission.

It doesn’t have to be this hard.

The memory from the dropship flashes into sharp focus, of the vast expanse of green and growing _everything_ that surrounds him, just outside his cage. So what if the sun is shining? So what if he is burnt to a crisp in a matter of seconds? At least, in those few seconds, he can feel the heat on his face, and the wind in his hair, smell the grass and, perhaps, even hear birdsong, or the sound of the far-off sea. That is worth the price. He’s _earned_ that small thing at least, hasn’t he?

He wheezes in a tight breath, puts every fibre of his crippled being into that thought, and _pushes._ Another scream bursts out of him, bloody spittle flying past his clenched teeth. His left hand moves. Shattered bones press against the suit’s corpse and _lift_.

Prompto knows he doesn’t have the energy or courage for a second pass. It has to be first try. He heaves his torso up, moving barely an inch, but it’s enough for his hand to catch the underside of his helmet as it arcs by. It displaces the face plate and drags it along with the limb until both land heavily in the grass above his head. The plate leaves a gouge in his cheek as it’s ripped free but he barely notices it.

Prompto keeps his eyes open, determined to take in as much as possible in his one precious moment.

Instead of incendiary sunlight Prompto is met with more darkness.

His heart nearly breaks. How has he ended up back inside? Has Niflheim come to collect him? Is he back in a facility, waiting on some cold storeroom pallet for the scientists to come and dismantle him, searching for the malfunction that has led to his noncompliance?

He blinks tears away, biting his bottom lip against the misery. It isn’t fair. It isn’t _fair—_

Then he sees it.

The world above him is not just one uniform shade of blackness. There are shapes high above: dark grey and mobile.

A breeze picks up and cools the sweat and blood on his brow. The shapes move with it, and suddenly…

Suddenly.

There are lights. Thousands of lights. Millions of lights. A million, _million_ lights as far as he can see. Some are bright white, some pale gold, others are blue, or red, or green. A vast swath shine upon a background of silver and bronze, streaking across the sky like a flare. He can’t see the moon but its light is there, reflecting off the ridge wall and turning the plain stone to marble.

The night sky.

Tears spill over, running silently down Prompto’s cheeks. In all his dreams, in all Pryna’s visions, he has never experienced, never could have imagined, this.

His heart, mending fast, begins to swell in his chest, until he is certain it will burst out of him. He feels the urge to laugh, to cry, to scream… anything and everything all at once, so overwhelming and humbling that he feels as mighty as an Astral, and as insignificant as a mote of dust.

The night isn’t silent either. The wind rustles the trees, and whispers through the grass. Somewhere a nightbird calls, lonely and proud. Even the stars are singing, a background hum on the very knife-edge of perception.

Closer though, he hears something shift over the earth.

Ice-water quickly drenches Prompto’s euphoria.

Shit.

He’s made too much noise; released the scent of his blood from the sealed prison of his armour.

Something is stalking him. Something large. Hungry.

Prompto trembles, tears falling faster. He thought he was ready. He thought he was okay with dying, if he only had that second’s taste of freedom. But, man, he doesn’t want to die! Not after seeing, and feeling, and knowing everything he’s missed out on in the two decades since his creation. Not yet. Not like this.

There’s no way he can fight it; his whole body trembles with fatigue, already well into the tertiary stages of shock. He is about to get eaten alive.

Miasma stink assaults him, and Prompto can’t help but rasp out a laugh at the irony. He’s been fed so much daemon blood over the years, it’s only fair he gives a little back.

“Come on then, dude,” he croaks. “Come and get it… I hope you choke on me.”

There was a rush of movement and he braces for teeth and claws. His eyes fix steadfast on the stars; he’ll keep looking at them for as long as he can.

Heavy footfalls approach fast, and the creature yelps. There’s a flurry of activity: snarling, cursing, panting, the slide of metal through flesh, a sharp cry, then a slump as something large hits the earth. The acrid stench of miasma dissipates into a breathless silence.

Prompto’s view of the sky is obscured by a familiar face, framed by spiky black hair. Blue eyes – darker than his but similarly tinged in a faint red afterglow that fades fast – stare down at him in shock and fear.

“Prompto?”


	5. Chapter 5

They’d been back at the Haven for hours and Noctis couldn’t stop thinking about the MT.

Gladio had woken up right after Iggy had applied the potion, which was fortunate because that was about as long as Noctis could force himself to last before he let stasis cash its fat-ass cheque. He had only vaguely been aware of Gladio swinging him up into a piggyback carry, his arms hanging limply over the shield’s shoulders and his cheek resting against the man’s back. He was carried like that all the way back to the camp, and when they got there could barely even muster a grumble when Gladio dumped him into a camping chair.

Noctis woke when the sun was just starting to dip below the horizon, Ignis pressing a bowl of daggerquill soup into his hands. He was so tired he didn’t even notice the vegetables until he was half-way through the bowl.

“Treason,” he groused, fishing a stringy green _something_ out from the broth and flicking it into the campfire.

Ignis only sighed and shook his head, saying nothing until the bowls were empty and they were all resting around the fire.

“We should discuss the outcome of today’s skirmish,” he said, giving the prince a pointed look.

Noctis groaned, flinging back his head and kicking out his feet until he was fully sprawled in the chair.

Great, a lecture.

“I know, Specs, I know,” he said, trying to fend off the worst of it.

“Clearly you do not, or else you wouldn’t have put yourself, and us, into such a hazardous position,” Ignis snapped.

“Urggh!” Noctis flung up his hands. “Okay, so I made a mistake. It’s not like anyone died.”

“ _I_ nearly died,” Gladio said, and – oh, great – he was going to take Iggy’s side, _again_. Which was totally unfair.

Even if he did kinda have a point this time.

Noctis deflated, folding his arms across his chest defensively. “I know,” he said, and this time the petulance was mostly gone. “I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

“You must be more careful, Noct,” Ignis pressed. Which: not cool. Noctis had apologised; there was no need to flog a dead chocobo.

”You can’t throw yourself headlong into battle all the time, particularly with our curative stock being so low,” Ignis said, “There’s no point in taking on these jobs if we spend all the reward money on replenishing our supplies.”

“I didn’t ask the damn dropships to come attack us,” Noctis grumbled, knowing he sounded like a whiny kid.

“Nevertheless, you needn’t have engaged them. The treeline would have given us plenty of cover to escape without further endangering ourselves.”

“But—!”

“Look, Princess,” Gladio said, leaning forward, “I get it. I’m happy for any opportunity to kick the Empire on its ass. But it’s not worth killing yourself over. Or us.”

Noctis couldn’t argue with that. He knew. He _knew_ that beating the crap out of Niff soldiers wasn’t going to bring back Insomnia, or everyone they’d lost. But it had only been just over a week and the grief was still raw inside him, howling in pain and fury every time he saw that damned Imperial insignia, and he’d just… lost it.

All of a sudden he was super weary; not with stasis, but with a general fatigue that was just as clawing on his bones.

“Yeah,” he said, slumping forward in the chair, his head resting in his hands.

His friends were quiet for a while.

“I think it best if we all get an early night,” Ignis said eventually, his tone painfully gentle, like Noctis needed to be treated like a fucking kid.

Gladio grunted in agreement. ”Go ahead, I’ll wash up.”

Noctis didn’t have it in him to feel offended, or to argue.

“Yeah,” he said again, and heaved himself to his feet.

He barely had the energy to kick off his boots when he got inside the tent. Screw changing clothes or whatever.

His head hit the pillow—

—and the next moment he was standing in the gardens of the Citadel.

He looked around, taking in the beauty and the peacefulness, knowing it was all just a memory. The flowers were fuzzy at the edges, the light hazy and somewhat distorted. A bee wobbled past, practically a blob of colour, ill-defined.

Noct frowned.

Something was missing.

Some _one_.

Unease filled him, and Noct whirled around, a name half way past his lips before he saw him.

A boy sat on the flagstones by the fountain, his legs crossed and his body hunched over. He was focused on something on the floor in front of him but Noct couldn’t see what from this angle.

Relaxing in relief, Noct strolled over, affecting a casual air, hands in his pockets.

“Hey, man.”

Prompto looked up, and gave him one of his dazzling smiles.

“Hey, Noct! Long time no see, buddy.”

Noct sighed and rubbed the back of his head apologetically. “Yeah, sorry, you know how it is. I had stuff to do.”

“Hey, no biggie,” Prompto said with a shrug and turned back to his work. It was a jigsaw puzzle, Noct could see now, but the pieces were distorted and the image as fuzzy as the rest of this place.

“I had my own stuff going on anyway.”

Noct sat down beside his friend with a sigh, leaning back to look up at the clouds.

He thought about telling Prompto about Insomnia... about his dad...

“It’s…” he started, and swallowed past the lump that was building in his throat. “It’s hard.”

“Pfft, you’re telling me,” Prompto snorted, but Noct thought he might be talking about the puzzle.

He thought back to when they first met. Noct wasn’t really sure what the trigger had been; perhaps the deeper sleep of the coma he’d experienced after the Marilith attack, or maybe the heightened connection to the crystal during the magical aspects of his healing, but something had opened up this ability to meet with Prompto in his dreams. He suspected Carbuncle might have had a part in it. Or maybe even his own subconscious, desperate as he had been for a friend, had reached out into the void and created him.

Man, that would be embarrassing.

The Prompto back then was nothing in comparison to the Prompto now. His movements had been robotic, his speech limited and hella weird: a cipher needing Noct’s input to actualise. But, during the course of their friendship Noct had buffed out the rough edges, and the kid’s personality had started to really shine though.

Prompto was a nerd. Like, a super nerd. He was fascinated by _everything_ and would listen to Noct’s explanations or stories for hours and hours, never once growing bored. He was kind, and generous, and always remembered little things that Noct had said, always questioned him about his day, or how this or that duty he’d been dreading at the palace had gone. Better yet, he was genuinely interested in Noct as a person, so unlike anyone else through the years who had tried to cosy up to him in order to exploit him for power or money. Prompto didn’t ask questions to score points, or to write it up neatly in a report for his father and the council. Even Iggy and Gladio, Noct’s only real friends, were paid to be there. None of the three had ever been able to shake off the fact that Noct’s retainers were first there out of duty, no matter that their friendship had grown over time and become a genuine bond. Noct hadn’t _chosen_ them to be his friends. Not like he’d chosen Prompto.

Prompto was Noct’s hypeman. His confidant. His best friend.

Noctis had talked about him at the beginning, his enthusiastic ramblings met with indulgent smiles from the palace staff and his extended family. “Noct’s imaginary friend” had been a topic of amusement and, at times, fond frustration for the members of the Citadel.

_“Prompto said making me eat string beans is whack.”_

_“Prompto said I shouldn’t have to go to the party if I don’t want to.”_

_“Prompto thinks you shouldn’t be such a meanie.”_

That last one, said to Gladio, had earnt him a scornful laugh and an epic noogie.

The indulgent smiles had faded over time, people growing less amused the more he pushed back at his stifling palace life. He’d catch the slight downturn of Iggy’s mouth, or the frown that wrinkled his father’s brow, and pause, enthusiasm turning to embarrassment. Some people – _Gladio_ – began to outright tell him that the “Prompto shit” was getting old and that he should grow up and quit being such a baby.

So he’d just… stopped talking about Prompto. And the less he talked about him the less he began to remember when he woke, until one day he couldn’t remember at all.

He’d still hang with Prom in his dream land, of course, but the frequency began to dwindle through the years, particularly after he finished school, dropping off almost entirely in the past few months. Noct’d thought he was outgrowing him. His imaginary friend. But seeing him again, after all this time, brought with it a profound sense of rightness and relief.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Hmm?” Prompto looked up, mouth parted in confusion, but then he twitched a lopsided grin and raised an arm to lightly punch Noct’s shoulder.

“Hey, man, I said it’s no biggie. We all have our own shit to deal with.”

“Yeah…” Noct sighed, “I just… I missed you.”

Prompto’s smile was like a thousand gigavolt lamp. Noct could swear the kid was blushing.

“Dude, that’s so lame,” he said, trying for aloof and missing by a mile.

“Pfft, _you’re_ lame,” Noct groused.

“Says the kid who sees his best friend in his dreams.”

“You have to live in my head, dude, you give me too much shit to be real.”

Prompto’s smile faltered just a little. “Yeah, well… I missed you too,” he said, clearly deflecting, “It’s been quiet here without you.”

Noct didn’t have an answer to that. He looked away, focusing his attention on the fountain, and they lapsed into an embarrassed silence. It _was_ quiet here, not even birds calling, let alone the background hum of palace life that had been ever-present in the real version of the gardens.

Prompto had gone back to working on the jigsaw.

“What’s it meant to be, anyway?” Noct said after time began to drag. He looked down at the puzzle, squinting, but the picture still wouldn’t come into focus.

“Just stuff,” Prompto said, slotting in another piece, ”You know how it is.”

Noctis wondered where the pieces were coming from; there didn’t seem to be a box.

He glanced around the garden absently. He couldn’t help the feeling that something was wrong here. Not just wrong, but _Wrong_ wrong. Captial ‘W’.

Prompto had nearly finished with the puzzle, hands working mechanically.

They... his hands were covered in blood... Noct hadn’t registered that as weird before.

He continued to watch, frowning when understanding began to trickle in as to just what he was seeing.

Prompto was pulling bits of his flesh from his own body, the chunks forming puzzle pieces in his blood-soaked hands.

Just like the nightmare this was turning out to be, Noct’s body was locked into place. He was forced to watch, helpless in that dream state of horror, as Prompto ripped off another piece – this time from his _face –_ to slot it into place on the board like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“What… what are you doing?” Noct managed to choke.

Prompto shrugged, his tone detached, indifferent.

“I told you, dude, I’ve got my own stuff to deal with.”

The picture was starting to come into focus now: it was a body of some kind, a portrait.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“ _Life_ hurts, man,” Prompto said with a heartbreakingly dismissive chuckle. “It’s, like, totally cool.”

“It’s _not_ cool,” Noct grit out. He could feel tears running down his face. “You keep this up you’re going to _die_.”

“That’s, like, the entire reason I was made, dude.” Prompto said, like it was a fact and not the most horrifying thing Noct’d ever heard.

The picture had finally solidified, but if anything it just made Noct more confused.

“Is that _Gladio_?”

“Hmm?” Prompto was barely paying attention to him anymore. His legs were picked clean to the bone, his face and torso a gruesome mess. “It’s missing one last piece…” He snapped his fingers, “Oh, I got it!”

And then Prompto plunged his hand into his own chest.

Noct cried out in horror, watching helplessly as the blood spurted.

Prompto pulled out his hand, his still-beating heart held in it’s grip, trailing vessels, which began to strain and snap one by one.

Noctis lunged toward him—

—and woke, blinking at the half-light of the tent interior.

He was sitting up in his sleeping bag, his body drenched in sweat. He could hear the echo of his own scream ringing in his ears, and a second later Gladio burst through the tent flap, a blade in his hand. He stopped short on seeing Noct alone and under no kind of attack, but his sword stayed at the ready.

“Shit, you have a nightmare or something? I thought someone was dying in here.”

Noctis passed the back of a shaking hand across his mouth, wiping away the dampness on his upper lip. His heart was hammering, his chest stuttering in an attempt to draw in breath.

“Hey,” Gladio said, coming forwards. His face was a mixture of amusement and concern.

“...Are you _crying_?”

“Shut up,” Noctis said, kicking his way out of his sleep bag and pulling on his boots.

“Is everything all right?” Ignis called from outside.

“Yeah, Princess just had a bad dream, is all.”

Noctis ignored them. He flung on his jacket and pushed past Gladio out of the tent. It was night, but only just. He’d maybe been sleeping for an hour max.

The last vestiges of his dream clung to Noctis like thick cobwebs, and he shuddered from more than just the night air cooling the sweat on his skin. He couldn’t even remember it now, but the dread remained, along with a certainty that he had to get back to the ridge.

“The MT,” he said, frowning as he got his bearings and then set off from the Haven. “We’re going back for him.”

Ignis gave an incredulous scoff. “Now? It’s hardly safe.”

“Yeah, for him too,” Noctis muttered, under his breath.

“Noct.” Ignis trotted to catch him up, then tried to take his shoulder, to slow him down. “Noct, listen. Wait for a moment and think about this rationally, please.”

“There’s nothing to think about,” Noctis growled, shaking him off and continuing at a determined pace. “He could be alive, Specs, and the longer we leave him the less likely that is.”

“I would hardly call the automatons alive,” Ignis said, his voice irritatingly reasonable. “Regardless, we both saw the wreckage, the possibility of anything surviving that is near zero.”

“We talking about that MT?” Gladio asked. His sword was out, calm warrior eyes scanning the wilderness for danger. “It was a machine, Noct, there’s nothing there that we can’t go collect in the morning, when there’s less monsters waiting to crawl up our asses.”

“Fewer,” said Ignis.

“Whatever.”

“But what if he’s not?” Noctis said. “What if he’s a deserter who used the suit to hide his escape?”

“I highly doubt—”

“You didn’t hear him talking, the way he screamed—”

“We know those creepy robots are programmed to mimic us to mess with our heads,” said Gladio. He stabbed a finger at the prince. “That’s what’s happening now. It’s got you suckered.”

“Why did he save you then?”

“It’s a machine, Noct,” Gladio huffed. “The damn thing probably got its wires crossed.”

“A fortunate error, but one which worked in our favour,” Ignis agreed.

“Gah! Why are you both so friggin’ stubborn?” Noctis said, flinging his arms wide to emphasise his frustration. “Can’t you accept there’s even the slightest chance that there might be some poor guy in that suit?”

“Doesn’t matter even if there was, it’d still be a Niff,” Gladio grunted. “I’m not getting eaten for an Imp soldier.”

“Regardless,” Ignis said, his voice cold, “This is an unacceptable risk to your safety.”

“Well get used to it,” Noctis snapped, and increased his pace until the pair had to jog to keep up, “‘cause I’m going whether you guys tag along or not.”

They met two bands of imps on the way. After the second one Gladio tried to grab Noctis and physically _drag_ him back to the camp, but the prince just warped away. After that he stayed just out of reach; enough to irritate the hell out of his retainers, but not so far that he was in danger of being ambushed. He ignored Gladio’s threats of extra training, and Ignis’s ominous mutterings about vegetable meals for the foreseeable future, his mind focused solely on the objective.

It took almost two hours; nearly twice as long as their retreat earlier that day thanks to the thicker undergrowth and the darkness, even with the moonlight to help them, but eventually they reached the wall at the base of the ridge and began to follow it along.

Noctis was beginning to worry that they’d miss the MT in the darkness, but then they all saw the unmistakable curl of miasma rising up from between the trees.

“Careful,” Ignis warned, his voice a murmur.

A starscourged coeurl was stalking forward toward something that lay in a heap at the cliff edge.

“Screw that,” Gladio grunted. “No pile of Niff armour is worth getting chewed up by one of those freaks.”

“What? You scared?” Noctis snorted, but lowly, not wanting the beast to hear them. They really should just wait until the beast had finished pawing at the corpse; from where they were standing it’s clear their target was dead. Nothing living would lie in that twisted position.

Unfortunately, Gladio didn’t rise to the bait. “Nah, just practical. We can come ba—”

Then they all heard it; a rasping chuckle, strained with agony. And a voice. A _really_ familiar voice. And suddenly Noctis remembered _everything_.

He didn’t think, he just threw his weapon at the coeurl, and hurled his body after it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back here just to add this, cause it's my FIRST EVER FANART, and also extremely cool, so please take a look at this amazing art that Mouser26 made of the previous chaper! T x
> 
> [Life Hurts Man](https://mouser26.tumblr.com/post/632859348612300800/life-hurts-mandoesnt-it-hurt-life-hurts)

“Prompto?” Noct says, his voice faint, incredulous, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

Prompto pulls his lips up into a grimace of a smile, knowing that blood coats his teeth and his face is probably a wreck. Great first impressions.

…Last impressions.

“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs, talking now a titanic effort.

“Prompto?” someone says gruffly, and the shield steps into view. He's got his sword held ready in his hand, as if Prompto’s in any kind of position to attack. “Like that imaginary friend of yours,” the man continues, “from when you were a kid?”

Relief saps the tension from Prompto’s bones. So, it wasn’t for nothing.

“Not so imaginary, it seems,” he hears the hand say from somewhere out of his periphery. But Prompto's still focused on the shield.

Prompto’s smile widens. “Oh cool, you made it.”

Gladiolus Amicitia frowns down at him, then gives a solemn nod. His nose is fixed, and his skin has a better pallor to it that suggests he’s no longer suffering the effects of blood-loss.

“Yeah, thanks to you.”

“You’re…” Prompto pauses to wheeze in a difficult breath, “you’re a real heavy guy, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” the shield says woodenly as Noct ducks his head and sniggers.

Prompto sighs and turns his attention back to the prince. He’s missed his friend’s laugh. “It’s good to see you, bud.”

Noct’s smile fades into seriousness. There’s a flash of blue light and an elixir appears in his hand, but before he can use it both Ignis and Prompto protest.

“His injuries are far too advanced,” the hand says.

“Yeah, dude,” Prompto agrees, “It’s okay, seriously.”

Noct looks conflicted, trapped, his eyes full of compassion.

“I’m sorry. If I’d known there was someone in the suit…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Prompto murmurs. He feels sleepy all of a sudden. Everything’s okay now. He’s dying but he’s not so bummed about it anymore. He drifts for a while, letting their words wash over him.

“We’ve got to do _something_ ,” Noct is saying, frustration clear in his tone. And yes, there is one thing. Something very important that the prince _can_ do, actually.

“Hey, do me a favour,” Prompto says, his voice thin and sticky with the blood that coats his mouth and throat, “…Get this suit off me?”

Noct nods jerkily, and his hands fly to the armour. After a moment’s pause the hand and the shield join him.

Prompto tries not to react as his body is tugged and jostled but there’s only so much he can endure even with all his conditioning; a couple of whimpers escape as Noct tugs the gauntlet from his left hand and the fingers slide free.

The more of his body is revealed the more upset the three men become, until Gladio is swearing and stamping off out of view, his fists clenched at his sides.

Ignis’s lips are pinched tightly together, his brows knitted as if he is trying to solve a particularly frustrating equation.

Noct simply works on, his movements almost as mechanical as an MTs, but his face pale and lined with anger. A grieve catches on something as he tries to pull it free and there’s a wet scraping noise followed by one of distress from the prince.

“It… shit…” he chokes, sounding close to vomiting, “It’s caught…”

Prompto tilts his head to get a look, easier now the helmet is off, and sees that the boot is caught on one of the bones that juts from his leg, preventing it from being tugged free.

“It’s okay, dude,” he hurries to say, “I can’t feel it.”

This doesn’t seem to reassure as he intended. The prince’s mouth clicks closed into a furious line, and he quickly works at the grieve, gently pushing down on the broken tissue and easing the boot over it.

It’s the last piece save for his back panelling, and _that_ is still connected to him. Prompto explains the process of removal through fits and starts, his remaining energy draining fast.

They don’t question why he can’t just leave that last piece in place, and he’s grateful, because he can’t explain it fully himself. He just… he doesn’t want to die as part of a machine.

Gladio has to come back to help roll him, swearing and growling all the while, but they quickly have Prompto settled back against the earth again, the armour scattered around him. Some of it is flung pretty far away, depending on who had done the throwing.

For some reason, Noct is sitting behind him, Prompto’s head resting in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice tight. His hand, though roughly wiped against his jeans, is still smeared with Prompto’s blood; even so he cards it though Prompto’s hair, easing out the knots and smoothing the strands away from his eyes. It’s getting long. The scientists didn’t bother having it shaved anymore; by the time units approached L3 it would begin falling out of its own accord anyway.

It feels… nice.

“You’ve got… nothing… to apologise for,” Prompto says slowly. He feels like he’s swimming in tar, and the tar is leaking into his brain, into his joints, slowing him down and seizing him up.

He moves the thumb and forefinger of his left hand – the only parts unbroken – and gently rubs a few blades of grass between them.

“It _is_ soft,” he murmurs, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	7. Chapter 7

Noctis stared down at Prompto, his heart hammering as he watched the final spark of life leave his friend's eyes. Such bright, light-blue eyes; how could he ever have forgotten them? If it wasn’t for the red tinge that stained them and the horrific mechanical devices lodged all over his body, there would be no telling Prompto apart from any other guy their age.

“What a remarkable young man,” Iggy said, and Noctis clenched his teeth. Understatement of the frikkin century.

With a spark of determined certainty, he stuck his hand out in front of him, above Prompto’s chest. Blue crystals shattered as he summoned a Phoenix Down from the Armiger, smashing it against Prompto before his retainers could do more than shout in alarm.

Fire engulfed Prompto, and his wounds rapidly began to close; jutting bones shrinking into flesh and limbs shifting back into realignment. He gasped, his concaved chest expanding as his lungs reinflated, body twitching and trembling as muscles reattached and bones knit back together. Metal circuits melted and wiring bubbled as it slid free; whatever the hell they’d been doing lodged in Prompto’s body they obviously weren’t natural – or had been judged so by the feather – burnt away like the blood that stained his pitifully thin clothes.

Prompto’s eyes flew wide open as he sucked in a deep breath, but only for a moment; then his whole body sank back into the relaxed slump of deep sleep.

There was a tense, angry silence.

“Need I remind you that was our _only_ Phoenix Down?” Ignis asked, his tone tightly disapproving.

“Yeah,” Noct said, turning to his advisor and glaring at him with an expression that clearly said he didn’t give a crap, “and if Prompto hadn’t been here we’d have used it on Gladio instead.”

“…Point taken.”

Gladio, however, wasn’t so easily swayed.

“What the hell, Noct?” He waved a frustrated hand at the MT—trooper— _whatever_ the hell Prompto was. “We know nothing about this guy.”

Noct jutted his chin out stubbornly. “We know he saved _your_ ass, if you don’t remember.”

“Shit, I remember,” Gladio snarled, “but that doesn’t mean we should be wasting valuable resources on him.”

“Quit bitching about something that’s already happened.”

“He’s the enemy.”

“He’s my _best_ _friend_.”

That shut Gladio up, but only because his mouth was hanging open incredulously.

Ignis cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. Perhaps this is a conversation best left until we are at a safer locale? We should retreat to the Haven before anything else decides to attack us.”

Gladio huffed a sharp, frustrated breath through his nose, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Fine, but I’m tying him up.”

  
  


They don’t tie him up.


	8. Chapter 8

Prompto awakes and he can’t see the stars.

Wherever he is, is filled with a warm, uniform light; not too bright as to hurt his eyes, but not cold and soulless like the striplights back in the base.

He’s lightly wrapped in something deliciously soft; softer even than the memory of grass between his fingertips; like the brief touch of cotton he used to feel if a scientist brushed too close during their experiments. It moves against his exposed skin as he breathes, a comforting weight to it. It’s like being in armour but a thousand times more pleasant, wrapped up snug like he’s inside a cloud.

There’s no pain. In fact, he feels better than he ever has done before.

So... Dead, then.

Well, if this is what he has waiting for him Prompto isn’t going to complain.

He wonders if Pryna could visit him here. Noct and Luna probably can’t; this place isn’t likely to be the same as the dream land they had shared.

He can hear birdsong. Trees and grass rustling in the wind. A steady murmur of… voices?

He sits up, and notes that he is in some sort of pod or room, but with fabric walls... A tent?

The softness that encases him appears to be some kind of puffy material that forms a loose shell from head to toe; likely a sleeping bag of some description, though it’s far more plush and substantial than any he’s ever seen the Imperial troops use.

With a bit of effort, he is able to pull his hands up and over the lip at the neck, seeing as he does so that he’s wearing clothes that are a little too big for him, with sleeves that reach his wrists.

Before he can contemplate that too deeply, there’s a movement from the far side of the tent, where a glint of a metal zipper suggests a doorway. A shadow looms outside and then the zipper is being tugged open, going slow in an apparent attempt to prevent it from making too loud a noise.

A head pops through the opening: Ignis Scienta, Hand of the Prince.

They stare at one another for a moment, and then the man’s stiff features relax into a smile.

“Our guest is awake, it seems,” he says, quietly. He pulls the zipper further back and steps through into the tent.

Sunlight follows him, and Prompto yelps, scooting backward away from the beam. Thankfully it doesn’t reach far enough in to burn him to cinders.

Ignis has frozen at his reaction, but after a second’s pause he comes forward once more. Prompto notes gratefully that he makes sure to block as much of the doorway as possible as he does so.

“How are you feeling?”

Prompto realises his mouth is open and shuts it quickly, attempting a swallow and finding his mouth dry.

“I’m…” he croaks, “Er… Good?”

Ignis smiles wryly. He produces a bottle of water from a pack slung to the side of the tent and comes closer, crouching down in front of Prompto and holding it out for him to take.

“I suspect this all may seem a bit puzzling to you?”

Prompto takes the bottle hesitantly, hunching up afterward and holding it to his chest like it will be taken back at any moment. He takes a breath, then another, and nods.

Ignis gives a businesslike nod in return, his arms resting upon his knees. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his forearms bare.

Prompto knows from the dossiers that Ignis is the Prince’s personal chef – a frustrating barrier to any poisoning attempts. Perhaps he’s been cooking?

“What do you remember?”

“I…” Prompto looks down at his hands and recalls the pain, the broken bones. “I died…”

“Unfortunately so,” Ignis is nodding when he looks back up, “Prince Noctis used a Phoenix Down to revive you.”

“But that only works on humans!” Prompto blurts in surprise. He can’t help himself; the idea is too absurd.

Ignis doesn’t react much, save for a slight raise in his eyebrows. “Well, that rather suggests that you _are_ human, does it not?”

Prompto swallows, ducking his head down away from those insightful green eyes. “I have human DNA,” he mutters, “and like, I guess just cause I was grown instead of born doesn’t mean I’m not… you know. I just… they spend so long telling you you _aren’t_ human I don’t…” he trails off. Heaves a shuddering breath.

A hand lands on his shoulder and he blinks, head jerking up to see Ignis is closer now, studying him with an intently serious expression.

“Noctis says your name is Prompto?”

Prompto nods hesitantly. “Yeah, that’s right. Prompto Argentum.”

Ignis smiles again, but there’s a steely undercurrent to it that dares him to contradict his words. “Well, Prompto Argentum, I have no idea what horrors you might have faced at the hands of the Empire, but I _do_ know that machines and monsters don’t sacrifice their lives in order to save another – particularly a stranger. There are precious few _humans_ who would even do as much. Whatever other questions may lie ahead of us, please believe that your humanity is not in doubt.”

“Oh,” Prompto says, stunned. “Um, okay... Cool.”

Ignis sits back and gives him a contemplative look, but he’s still smiling when he adds: “An odd human, certainly, but a human nevertheless.”

Prompto snorts, finally reaching for the bottle cap and opening it. “Hey, right back atcha, Specs,” he says, chugging half the bottle in one go.

It tastes sweet and cool, and fills him with a calm sort of certainty.

Yeah, everything’s going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despair not, I'm going to continue with this story! This seemed like a good place to pause though, since it was the original end to the fic. I've not decided if the next bit's going to be a selection of one-shots or another multi-story like this one, but I HAVE started writing the first part so it shouldn't be too long until I've got it figured out and posted :)
> 
> ....perhaps next time Prom's pain will merely be mental instead of physical..... jk!.... unless.....
> 
> Thanks for all your lovely comments! I do hope you've forgiven me :3 T x


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